A Qualified Success

It has just gone 1:10pm Eastern Time on February 11, 2006. And defending Daytona 500 champion Jeff Gordon is transfixed.

Not by any set-up changes made on his number 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Not by the constant fans and media that always surround the man who has more Nextel Cup titles than any other active driver. But by the huge plasma television screen inside his personal motorhome, parked in the infield of Daytona International Speedway.

He is watching the qualifying session for next weekend's Daytona 500, the very same session that he will later be competing in.

As every driver completes his two solo qualifying laps, Gordon mentally notes their fastest laptimes before the television commentators - he is just watching the terrestrial feed - turn that lap into a fan-friendly mph figure that the 34 year-old ignores.

"I'm just after their final laptime rather than their overall speed," Gordon explains.

"They use the miles-per-hour for the fans, because they want to know about speed. The laptime doesn't mean as much to them, but it does when we go to Martinsville and is something like an 18 or 19 second laptime and the top speed is only 100mph."

This vehicle is remarkably silent considering the thunder going on outside. A quite peaceful, neat and tidy abyss, and Gordon's home away from home for the majority of the 38 weekends on the NASCAR schedule. There is no crew chief or any other member of the team bothering him to discuss his car or anything else. No PR people or sponsors vying for his attention. He is alone.

Well, not quite, because I'm there too. It's quite a privilege to be sitting with Gordon, watching Budweiser Daytona 500 Pole Qualifying, just kicking back and watching the session as he psyches himself up for his foot-to-the-floor run in about an hour.

"Yesterday we ran a 47, point, er, what were we at?," Gordon says before pausing to consider. "Well, a 47.9-second lap or something was our fast lap. Now, right now, the fastest car is at 47.8, but you don't see that on the television screen because they just list in miles per hour and we don't pay any attention to that.

"So I just know what I've got to run - Kyle [Busch] just ran a 47.98, that has put him fourth, we were hoping that if things went our way we can run a 47.6."

Bobby Labonte is currently topping the timesheets in his first meeting for Petty Enterprises, despite many of the more fancied runners having already tried to knock him off his perch.

"Labonte's pace surprises me, though," Gordon muses. "When we were down here testing I didn't think they looked that good, but they have figured something out coming back. Good for him. Robbie Loomis has just joined them; he was my former crew chief, and I'm a big fan of his. He is cool, so I'm happy for him."

Qualifying for the Daytona 500 takes place a week ahead of the race, and determining the grid is a prolonged and complex process. Thanks to his 11th place championship finish last year, Gordon knows he will be one of the cars on the grid on Sunday - but he doesn't know where. Most of the grid is determined after Thursday's Gatorade Duel qualifying races but the session we are watching will determine the front row.

The order for this single-car, two-lap session is determined by a random draw. Gordon was fortunate and will run 55th of the 58 cars attempting to qualify. Right now we are about to watch the 14th - Mark Martin.

"I'm just curious to see what laptimes people are putting up," Gordon continues. "We have in our minds what speed we think we can run. Of course the winds have changed, and I will see if someone is running a different line from what they have run before, but this is one of the easier tracks for the driver to qualify and probably the most difficult for the teams, because it is such a big track.

"With the restrictor plates you are just wide open and you just try and run a smooth line, but for the team to try and build a smooth car for this type of track you have to pay attention to every little detail."

When speeds got too quick at Daytona in the late 1980s, NASCAR organisers mandated a restrictor plate. It is a thin square piece of aluminium with four holes that fits between the carburettor and intake manifold. It restricts the amount of air coming into the engine. As a result, Daytona qualifying is a full throttle aerodynamic exercise.

"In qualifying here the driver can't make the difference," Gordon continues. "Not at this track. Now getting into the [aero] draft for the race - well, then you really have to have that special something. You know the driver has to really play a role in watching the lines and the momentum, and you have a spotter in your ear telling you what is going on.

"When we leave here and go to California next week, then the driver has a lot more input. But kinda right now, we've got what we've got, we've got to get through [technical] inspection and go and lay down the best lap we can. And hope it is somewhere towards the front."

The racing line he will take will therefore be nothing special. He is not watching the television to pick up any tips on other drivers' secret ways of getting through Turn 2. It is simply a matter of going through the motions and hoping that his car is the best - yet it is not as straightforward as he makes out.

"You run the high line on the out-lap to get up to speed, because the gearing and the restrictor plate are knocking a couple of hundred horsepower off the engine, and it takes about a lap and a half for the car to get up to speed. That's why you see 'em wind the car up and get up high and then run the shortest line they can around the track. Look where he is running around the yellow line there."

Veteran Bill Elliott finishes the final metres of his 47.945 seconds lap, and the camera switches to a close-up shot of Richard Childress Racing's Kevin Harvick, waiting patiently in the pitlane for his qualifying run.

"He's probably the car to beat right there, Kevin," Gordon says assuredly. "He was quick in practice.

"It was just the speed he put in yesterday, I think everyone has pretty much shown what they had yesterday, and are getting the most out of it, and the guys who were at the top of the charts yesterday will be at the top of the charts today.

"There will be a couple of surprises, but the most important thing is to back up what I did yesterday and maybe pick it up a little bit.

"The only is thing about today's session that is important is the first two. The first and second fastest qualifiers are locked in and that's really important. If you can't be first or second, I don't think it really matters, because you have the qualifying races on Thursday to get yourself into the race and get your starting position.

"Qualifying outside the top two doesn't really mean anything to me today. That is such an important place to be because that locks you in."

But Gordon, arms crossed and sitting on the edge of the sofa inside his plush vehicle, is not especially confident about his qualifying run. NASCAR teams, like all others in racing, push their cars to the edge of the rules in the hope of gaining that extra hundredth of a second.

And while we sit there, watching the session and chewing the fat, Gordon's car is still being carefully scrutinised by the eagle-eyed technical officials.

"I was feeling pretty good about it all until they said we had some issues going through the inspection line. It will always concern you when you go through there. The inspectors might complain about something that they didn't complain about when we were going through inspection two days ago, and that always worries me.

"I don't know what the problem is, I haven't talked to them yet. You hope just whatever they find doesn't slow you down too .....oh my."

Gordon interrupts himself sharply.

"That is not as quick as he could have gone. Not even close."

Harvick has just finished his qualifying run. His Chevrolet Monte Carlo machine ran a disappointing 48.024 seconds lap, and Gordon is genuinely surprised by his time.

"That tells me that maybe when he went through the inspection line, they might have found something on him as well."

But, I ask, couldn't something else have caused Harvick to lose some time from yesterday? It was, after all, an extremely windy day, and there could have been nowhere to hide on Daytona's 31-degree banked turns.

"The way we gear the cars is for big headwinds down the front straightway. We are still basically going to have that. And we are going to have a tail wind down the back straight, but had that changed direction then maybe we might have made some changes.

"I think that the way we are set up is still pretty good for the conditions. You can get a big gust of wind and that will really slow you down and there is nothing you can do about that. The car will move around a little bit. You will notice it but it's nothing you can't control. It slows the car down when the wind hits you like that."

Gordon is distracted again.

"That's not good."

Ganassi Racing's Casey Mears fails to get going on his qualifying run. His team push him down the pits until they reach the yellow pit exit line - a point of no return.

"He's my buddy, Casey. I hate to see that for him. He was trying to start and I guess he burned out the battery or the starter and then they tried to push it but then it still wouldn't start. You can't push the car passed that yellow line. Once you are past that, your run is done. He's now on a five minute clock to get going."

Attention now turns to Jeff Green, in the number 66 Chevrolet.

"Now this is one of our engines in this car, so he is somewhat of a teammate. But I could see he slowed down a little bit there.

"They have that little graphic up there, and that thing up there told me he was ahead on the back straight away, until he hit the head wind."

The cars were counting down towards Gordon's run and now, all the better for understanding the intricacies of Daytona 500 qualifying, it was time for me to go. I politely wished him the best of luck for his run.

I watched the remainder of the session from the media bunker. Labonte was bumped down the order eventually to sixth, and Jeff Burton and Dale Jarrett occupied the all important front-row positions with four cars left to run.

Gordon's car had, despite his concern, passed technical inspection. His first lap was not bad, but still only good enough for mid-field.

He crossed the line to take the chequered flag, but his position didn't move on the scoring monitor.

Then came an agonising wait while the computer caught up with itself, and everyone waited to find out where the last of the big-named drivers had qualified.

The computer jerked into life.

A guaranteed front-row starting spot.

Second.

Daytona 500 qualifying explained

43 spots for 58 cars

The Daytona 500 grid is decided by a combination of a single-car qualifying session called the Budweiser Pole Qualifying (which was held on Sunday, February 12), and two short races called the Gatorade Duels (held on Thursday, February 16).

These are not to be confused with the Budweiser Shootout race (Saturday February 11), which is a separate, non-championship race for drivers who secure pole position in any of 2005's races and previous Budweiser Shootout champions.

There are 43 positions up for grab on the 2006 Daytona 500 grid for the 58 entrants for this year's race, however the top 35 cars in 2005 car owner points are guaranteed a starting spot.

Bud Pole Qualifying

The fastest two qualifiers in the Bud Pole Qualifying lock in the front row for the Daytona 500, but these are the only positions decided in this session.

Gatorade Duel Races

The field (including the Daytona 500 front row starters) are split into the two Gatorade Duel qualifying races. The pole sitter starts the first race and the second fastest starts the second race.

The cars that finished in odd numbered positions in car owner points (1,3,5 etc) start the first race with the pole-sitter and the even numbers in car owner points (2,4,6 etc) start the second race.

The drivers that did not finish in the top 35 in owner points in 2005 are split into either race based on their qualifying time in Budweiser Pole Qualifying (odd in race one then even in race two).

The grid order for both Gatorade Duel races are determined by the drivers' speeds in the Budweiser Pole qualifying.

Daytona 500

With the front row already decided, positions 3 to 39 are determined by the finishing positions in the Gatorade races.

The top 35 cars in 2005 owners points are guaranteed a position in the top 39, along with the best of the rest from each race.

The finishers in the first race start behind the pole-sitter (odd numbers), and those in the second race start parallel behind second place (even).

The next positions (40 to 42) are then determined purely by the drivers' speed from Bud Pole Qualifying.

The final spot, 43rd, is reserved for a former series champion should one not qualify for the field through any of the previous methods. Only two former champions are competing in this year's race that weren't in the top 35 in owners points - Terry Labonte and Bill Elliott.

Labonte has first call on the spot, called a Champion's Provisional, because he has been champion more recently than Elliott (Labonte was champion in 1996 to Elliott's most recent title in 1988.)

If Elliott and Labonte make the field elsewhere, the 43rd spot goes to the next fastest in Bud Pole Qualifying.

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